Primary objective of GAP is to measure polarisation of ganma ray bursts and try to understand the mechanism. However, it is only 4 months in operation and we have not yet meaure enough of these bursts.

Following report (what follows?, P) is based on the collaborative work with all those GRB satellites around the world with a view to determining the directions of these bursts.

Earlier page's list has data from Russian Konus satellie (K), US Fermi satellite (F), and US-Italy Swift satellite (S). For example, the burst, GRB 100826A (detected on 26 August 2010) was determined to be within the region surrounded by the blue frame with the graph here. Due to polarisation measurements IKAROS is providing additional accuracy.

Succeeded in obtaining about 20 times more accuracy of orbit determination compared with earlier JAXA measurements (Hayabusa and AKATSUKI), with the thermal noise level of 50 pico seconds.

Objectives of the experiments:

This is a mission devoted to try out DDOR(Delta differential one-way range) techniques. Basically, very far radio emitting stars are used and the very long baseline interferrometry and triangulation is involved. Participants are as follows:

NASA JPL is quite active in this technology, and for instance, NASA DSN were deeply involved, when required, with DDOR determination of Akatsuki, almost everyday. Collaboration has been done before, but we lacked this essential element, multi tone transmitter, and this time we developped a dedicated transmitter and used it with 8 organisations' 15 antennas with 24 pases.

Comparison (orbit information) between Akatsuki and IKAROS data is as follows:

What follows from page 27 on, I find it very difficult to translate (technical terms, mainly), but I will give it a try in the belief that even if my translation is not good some people with background knowledge may find them useful.

Page 27:

4: Supplementary info on VLBI multitone transmitter

We developped a DDOR digital base band converter (64 Msps/16 ch/4 bit, 4096 Gbps). 2 graphs here, one on left is the result obtained by this digital wideband system, and one on right is the data recorded by conventional analogue/narrowband system.

With conventional recording system you need to combine a couple of 8 MHz bandwidth analogue signals. The right graph indicates that the gain and the phase within the band are not flat enough.

With this new system it becomes possible to use weak qasor signals as calibrators and that will be useful with future wideband DDOR systems using Ka band.

Page 28:

4: Supplementary info on VLBI multitone transmitter

There is one graph on this page, which came from the observation made on 29 July 2010, using Usuda-Canbera baseline for VLBI observation.

Vertical axis is the delay residual (whatever it means, P) in nano seconds. Horizontal axis is the time ellapse from the start of observation in seconds.

Character string down right says "delay residual of quasor J1425-2513"

Character string to the left os it in blue says "delta DOR observed quantity"

The bottommost character string says "IKAROS delay residual"

There are 2 texts here on this page, the first one being explanation of the chart itself, and the second one is on future operations from now on. And, I am now going to paste those text down here for further translation. If it does not go well, then I will send this up anyway and try to upload another post.

On the graph, 6 groups of dots (I find only 5, P) relate to IKAROS' VLBI delay residual and those 3 upper left and another 3 upper right exists in the vicinity of IKAROS on the "star sphere surface" (I do not know the word for this, P)

These two are the delay residuals of the astronomical bodies whose positions are accurately known. IKAROS' plot is based on range/Doppler measurements and if its orbit determination is correct IKAROS' delay residual should be on the same line as these of two astronomical bodies'.

However, these are not in line, clearly suggesting a bias coming from orbit determination error not accurately estimated by range/Doppler measuments.

ΔDOR observation quantity: (-7.83 nsą50ps)

With these two astronomical bodies we see that , despite weak signals from quasor producing a lot of noise, delay residuals are on the same line, suggesting that bias due to the presence of atmosphere etc has been successfully removed.

Operations from now on:

Compared with bus system antennas VLBI transmitter has a narrower bandwidth and future observation oppotunities are limited and measurment accuracy is not large. However, we will continue to operate the system because we expect to be using this system with our future missions a lot regularly and we need to improve on the system such as pipelining and semi-automatic operation.

Observation so far has given us a lot of quality data for orbit determination and we should be able to come up with detrmination accuracy of a few centimeters, compared with a few meters accuracy required for deep space orbit determination.

We will also be making use of near Earth satellites for further improvements on accurate orbit determination.

Cosmic dusts detector engineering tests, to be used for future Jupiter exploration and other outer planets, also to be used in near Earth orbits.

Device composition and arrangement:

1. 0.3% of the sail membrane (0.54 square meters)2. Piezo-electric thin film elements of 2 different thicknesses at 9/1000mm and 20/1000mm in 4 channel arrangement at the sensing part (ALDN-S at 40g) and detection part (ALDN-E at 210g)

I am taking a little time off at the moment, but I will come back with the newsletter translations soon.

Since it contains different topics and since I do not wish to be a new topic starter I am thinking how best I might do this. However, I can assure you that these newsletters do make some interesting light readings.

While at work I always enjoyed these, and I would have thought they no longer existed...

just one question: what are they talking about when speaking of "1970", "1990" etc in page 30?

Thanks and apologies for not translating fully. You can actually ask for further translations any time you wish.

The top graph is cosmic dusts distribution in space nearer to the Sun than the Earth.

Vertical axis is the flux and the horizontal is heliocentric distance in AU.

Character string at the top left of this graph is IKAROS (2010), down below it in red is Helios 1 (1970's) and just to the right of it is the counting by Galileo (1990's).

Two characters at the bottom left is : Venus orbit, right : Earth orbit

There are two small graphs at the bottom and one on left is IKAROS orbit, and the one on the right is IKAROS orbit with respect to the Sun-Earth fixed frame of reference.

Here below, I will paste the main text and hope it will succeed.

Page 30: Supplementary information on ALDN

Operational results:

(1) Large area dust counter started operation on 21 June 2010. Dusts larger than a few micron size were recorded on all of the 8 channells. A little more than 100 dusts were counted during 25 days starting on 30 June and this number is larger than the count recorded by a German counter (MDC) on board NOZOMI during 45 months from August 1998.

(2) Study of dusts distribution dependence on heliocentric distance

Earlier countings during 1970's and 1990's were somewhat uncertain in accuracy in time resolution. IKAROS data seems to show a continuous rise in the flux as we approach Venus. We may get more information as we continute to operate IKAROS.

I am taking a little time off at the moment, but I will come back with the newsletter translations soon.

Since it contains different topics and since I do not wish to be a new topic starter I am thinking how best I might do this. However, I can assure you that these newsletters do make some interesting light readings.

While at work I always enjoyed these, and I would have thought they no longer existed...

P

Paolo

I am afraid I am giving up the idea of translating this newsletter, simply because I found that I cannot copy texts. I have been trying for the last few days all of my tricks for copying, but to no avail.

If you or any other Forum collegues find something to be translated with any other items (as long as it is not too much) I will be willing to do so. I am a very fast translater (actually, very, very fast...) as long as I can copy and paste and overwrite.

Apologies once again and I will sit back for the moment and enjoy posts. My next main interest is ATRO-G, as it will not go far away from earth.

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